It follows that any proposed legislation to enable the commercial use of orphan works or the extended collective licensing of copyright works, which is intended to result in a copyright holder in practice being 'deprived of his possessions' without his knowledge or consent (which Mr. Justice Arnold has judged to be the consequence for rightsholders of piracy of their copyright work) would breach Article 1 of the First Protocol of the Human Rights Act 1998.

Interestingly the Human Rights Act 1998 restrains the Government from introducing legislation that is not compliant with human rights legislation, and indeed reading Section 6 it may be unlawful for civil servants even to draw up such legislation. When asked at a pre-consultation meeting on 23rd August 2011 attended by Stop43, among others, Matt Cope of the Intellectual Property Office confirmed that new UK legislation must be compliant with the Human Rights Act 1998.

The cynical amongst us may feel that this has been a purposeful act. I can't comment. If you have taken the trouble to do a submission - PLEASE send it in by recorded delivery post guaranteed arrival for Monday, to: